The fight for Labour’s soul – what the party’s brutal 1981 split means today | Politics | The Guardian Labour The fight for Labour’s soul – what the party’s brutal 1981 split means today Labour is in crisis. The bitter divide across the party echoes the acrimony that drove the ‘gang of four’ to form the breakaway SDP. Will history repeat itself? (From left) Roy Jenkins, David Owen, William Rodgers and Shirley Williams launch the SDP in March 1981. Photograph: David Gaywood/Rex/Shutterstock Tuesday 19 July 2016 10.18 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 28 September 2016 08.13 EDT Share on Messenger Close On a mild winter Sunday morning 35 years ago, political reporters were instructed to go to a riverside house in east London, and to wait outside for an important announcement. Inside were four former Labour ministers, all well-known national figures: Shirley Williams , David Owen , Bill Rodgers and Roy Jenkins . Over the previous year and a half, they had met with growing frequency, and written articles and given interviews that suggested a common disenchantment with Labour.

They had become known by an increasingly expectant media as the gang of four . In 1981, as now, British politics was in a state of rare flux. Margaret Thatcher was an inexperienced prime minister. Her austere economic and public-spending policies seemed disastrous. Meanwhile, the Labour opposition was being ineffectually led by Michael Foot , like Jeremy Corbyn a faintly otherworldly leftwinger in his late 60s. Under Foot, as under Corbyn, the party was becoming an unmanageable cauldron of leftwing and centrist factions, of London social liberals and northern social conservatives, of working-class trade unionists and middle-class constituency activists, of party loyalists and “entryists” – infiltrators from other, more confrontational leftwing groups such as Militant . Scenes from the battle for the soul of the Labour party | Letters from Margaret Beckett MP, Simon Rose, Professor Diane Reay, Peter McKenna, Rachel Ester and Ian Sinclair Read more “The four of us were very different from each other,” remembers Rodgers of his fellow rebels against this apparently fragile status quo. “We had no organisation. But we worked closely together.

And we moved very quickly.” On 24 January 1981, the gang of four went to their final Labour event: an acrimonious one-day conference that voted to drastically reduce the influence of MPs over the party’s choice of leader and deputy leader. Again, there is a seemingly precise parallel with Labour’s current internal struggles over whether Corbyn’s fate as leader should be decided by activists or the parliamentary party. As MPs or former MPs, and longstanding champions of the Labour right, the gang of four saw the conference vote as an intolerable strengthening of the left’s power. Owen spent much of the day pointedly sitting on the stairs of the hall, away from the other delegates, his expression one of photogenic fury. The following day, the gang of four summoned the journalists to the east London house, which was Owen’s elegant family home. For several hours, while the reporters waited in the street, the politicians discussed and drafted a short manifesto – pausing for a lunch of wine, cheese and salad – that they titled the Limehouse declaration . At teatime, after 18 drafts, with the deadlines for the next day’s papers fast approaching, the document was handed out to the reporters.

It announced the founding of a “council for social democracy”, which would “reverse Britain’s economic decline”, “eliminate poverty”, “create an open … more equal society”, and counter “the drift towards extremism in the Labour party”. Over the next few weeks, this council haphazardly but quickly crystallised into a new political party. There were newspaper ads appealing for donations and other support, signed by centre-left notables such as Lord Young , the author of Labour’s famously successful 1945 general election manifesto. There were excited debates about what the party’s name should be: Progressive Labour, Democratic Labour and New Labour were all suggested. In March 1981, with the media already in the habit of describing them as “social democrats”, the gang of four settled on the Social Democratic party, or SDP. Eighty thousand people joined in its first year. During 1981 and 1982, 28 Labour MPs joined, too – the largest parliamentary defection since 1886, when the Liberals had split over Ireland. The Liberals had subsequently been out of power for almost 20 years.

Pinterest David Owen (left) and David Steel, leaders of the SDP-Liberal Alliance, at the launch of the 1987 Alliance election campaign. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images Yet in the SDP’s hugely optimistic early days , few dwelled on such precedents. “We were amazed by the scale of the reaction,” Williams says. “We were not completely prepared for it.” Owen told me in 2012 that Jenkins in particular “geared himself to think that if he became SDP leader”, which he soon did, “he could almost become PM” at the next general election. The SDP formed an alliance with the Liberals, who were also surging in popularity. In December 1981, a poll by Gallup put the alliance at 50.5%, a heady 27% ahead of both Labour and the Tories.

At the Liberal party conference that autumn, their usually judicious leader, David Steel , told delegates: “Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government.” In recent weeks – in fact, ever since it became clear last summer that Corbyn was going to be elected leader, and that many of his MPs were never going to accept that – it has seemed increasingly possible that Labour will split again, and that this time the divisions could be even worse. In 1981-2, only a tenth of Labour MPs deserted to the new party; last month, three-quarters of them backed a motion of no confidence in Corbyn , despite his huge electoral mandate from party members. Labour has always been a potentially explosive coalition of idealists and pragmatists, of different interest groups and ideological tendencies: both a loose “Labour movement” and to varying degrees a disciplined party. Some of those aghast at the present in-fighting seem to have forgotten that even the party’s relatively stable periods have been marked by intimidation and intolerance, such as the malicious briefing and crushing of dissent practised by New Labour’s spin doctors.

Yet the current turmoil feels as nasty as any since the early 80s, with threats of violence alleged by both sides, and all constituency meetings suspended until the leadership contest is decided in September in an attempt to reduce the acrimony (some local parties are meeting regardless). Last month, while Corbyn was being castigated by much of the parliamentary party in a room in Westminster, thousands of his supporters were massing and chanting his name in Parliament Square, directly outside. Labour already looked and sounded like two parties. “The moderates now are pretty close to feeling the despair we did,” says one of the first Labour defectors to the SDP in 1981, who is still active in Westminster and asks not to be named. “It is a tragic situation,” Rodgers says. For all its excitement, the 1981 SDP breakaway also “caused pain to me and those who left the party. My friends and neighbours were divided. My three daughters stayed in the Labour party.” Rodgers continues: “Even a week ago, I would have said that somehow the Labour party will scrabble along [intact].

I think now it is a possibility there will be a split.” Williams, revealingly, calls such a scenario “a crack-up”. The 1981 defector says: “I have a feeling these [anti-Corbyn] guys will declare themselves to be a parliamentary party. If they’re really disciplined, they will have more MPs than Corbyn, and become the opposition to the government.” Pinterest David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers recreate their 1981 meeting at David Owen’s house in 2006. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian Last weekend, the Mail on Sunday reported that “more than 150 Labour MPs are plotting to form a breakaway party codenamed Continuity Labour”, if Corbyn wins the September leadership ballot. David Winnick was first elected as an MP in 1966. He did not leave Labour for the SDP. “The crisis today is much more serious than in 1981,” he says. “The SDP had limited influence among party members. Very few constituency Labour parties crumbled. The defectors were seen as rightwingers, and their alliance with the Liberals demonstrated that.

The party was left intact.” Frank Field , another long-serving MP who stuck with Labour in 1981, remembers the split differently. “The people who were going to leave – I was just so anxious that they stay. Owen was a legitimate part of the Labour party.” But he agrees with Winnick that Labour in the 80s had a durability it may lack now: “The loyalty of the Labour vote then was strong.” The 1981 crisis blew up much more gradually than Labour’s current one, which has been accelerated by social media, the faster modern news cycle and by a feverishness in British politics that has seen two referendums, a shock general election result, and five major parties changing their leaders, all in less than two years. The Labour-SDP split, by contrast, developed over almost a decade. In 1972, Dick Taverne , a former Labour minister, resigned from the party after a bitter dispute with leftwing Labour activists in his constituency, and the following year set up a sort of prototype SDP, the Campaign for Social Democracy . It failed to attract much support and was wound up in 1975.

But the same year saw the formation of another SDP-ish group, the Social Democratic Alliance. Its main preoccupation was the infiltration of the Labour party by Militant and other hard-left organisations. During the 70s, this “entryism” had become a significant phenomenon, as activists with non-Labour loyalties began to take control of some local Labour parties. Field’s constituency is in Merseyside, a focus for Militant in the 70s and 80s, and he experienced the sect’s methods at first hand. “Two things I learned are that you can have a level of intimidation in a group [setting] that stops people from saying things, and that the hard-left are wonderful liars. They always have a plausible person as their public representative. And when you say you’ve seen intimidatory behaviour, they always say, ‘We never saw that.’” Pinterest Derek Hatton (centre) and other members of Militant sing the Internationale outside Labour’s HQ after being expelled from the party in 1986.

Photograph: Paul Fievez/Daily Mail/Rex However, in the early 80s, as now, the Labour right often did not draw a distinction between such sectarian activity and the increasingly leftwing tendencies of many genuine and unaggressive Labour members. The latter, like many in the party now, and in the pro-Corbyn pressure group Momentum , had grown disillusioned with the cautious, compromising approach that the party had recently followed in government, and that had arguably caused it to lose power. As Owen himself conceded in the New Statesman in 2011 : “In the aftermath of electoral defeat [in the 1979 general election] … It was not unreasonable for those on the left to try to shift the balance of power in the party closer to their views.” Yet in the early 80s, he and the other founders of the SDP portrayed this leftward shift as a takeover of Labour by utterly foreign ideas. In his classic, recently republished history of Militant , the veteran political reporter Michael Crick points out that in 1981 the group had at most 2,500 members.

Labour had a hundred times that; Militant’s influence over the party was smaller than defectors to the SDP often claimed. Since the 80s, Militant has renamed itself as the milder-sounding Socialist party . Its newspaper is generally supportive of Corbyn – sometimes referred to as Jeremy – and of Momentum. Since his election as leader, it has been claimed more and more widely that Militant’s power inside Labour is on the rise again. Field says: “The same [Militant] people who we expelled from the party in the 80s are tormenting Angela Eagle.” Eagle faced a revolt in her Merseyside constituency after announcing her abortive leadership challenge against Corbyn. And yet, as Crick records in his book, “Corbyn was never anywhere near being a member of Militant”. That has not changed. Similarly, last December, Momentum declared : “We can’t allow Momentum to be used as a vehicle for other parties. So if you are a member of the Socialist Party … for instance, you cannot also be involved in decision-making within Momentum.” If the party does split again, what might happen to the two sides?

Rodgers has a warning for anyone contemplating a SDP-style breakaway: “Members of parliament are not that strong – they’re not like soldiers. When it comes to the moment [to defect] they get rather shaky, they try to find a way to avoid it happening.” The 28 Labour defections to the SDP were fewer than the gang of four hoped for. The 1981 defector who doesn’t want to be named says: “The anti-Corbyn side have moved too quickly against him. They never gave him a real chance to fail demonstrably. They’ve been seen off, for now. If he holds on in the leadership ballot this September, a lot of power will accrete to him. A coalition of the [mostly pro-Corbyn] trade unions and all the young people in Momentum would take a lot of Commons seats from any anti-Corbyn party [at a general election].” For that reason, it has been alleged, some on the Labour left are sanguine about the party splitting. Pinterest Shirley Williams in 1981.

Photograph: Herbie Knott/Rex/Shutterstock Alternatively, the British electoral system, which is almost uniquely biased against all but the biggest parties – as Ukip learned to its cost when 3.9m votes at last year’s election earned it a single Commons seat – may crush both Labour offshoots. “The ultimate nightmare,” Winnick says, “is that neither survives electorally. The party must remain as one … even if under the present leader. Better a dismal result than splitting.” Williams disagrees. “Splits are unavoidable, if the issues are big enough. I don’t think either Labour or the Conservatives can hold together. There are too many issues – such as Brexit – that cut across party boundaries.” She argues that a “loose coalition of parties of the left” would be much more effective than the current, dysfunctional Labour party. Dear Labour, split the party and you’ll regret it. Love from an SDP candidate | Polly Toynbee Read more But history is against her. In June 1983, two years after the SDP was founded, the SDP-Liberal alliance contested its first general election.

It got 25% of the vote, exceptional for a new party but exactly half its giddy rating in the 1981 Gallup poll. Labour, despite still being led by the derided Foot, got 2% more. Labour also held on to 209 of its Commons seats. The SDP got six. The split in the left-of-centre vote kept Thatcher in office with crushing Commons majorities for seven more years. In 1990, after never quite regaining its initial popularity, the SDP was disbanded. Roy Jenkins died in 2003. The remaining members of the gang of four, and more disinterested politicians and historians, have long argued that the SDP’s ideas – such as the “classless society” and “more responsive public services” called for in the Limehouse declaration – outlived the party, shaping the Lib Dems, New Labour, even the Conservatives. “ Theresa May’s first [surprisingly left-leaning] speech as prime minister – that was pure social democracy,” claims the 1981 defector from Labour to the SDP.

Williams says: “People still come up to me and say: ‘I weep that the SDP are no longer with us.’” Affection, influence, the adventure of a new party – many political careers fail to achieve these. But will the possibility be enough to tempt the anti-Corbyn mutineers, some of whom were ministers only a few years ago? We may find out within weeks, or it may take years. The gang Labour blames for wilderness years - Telegraph The gang Labour blames for wilderness years The 'Gang of Four', from left: Bill Rodgers, David Owen, Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor 12:01AM BST 16 Sep 2007 Even after 26 years, the shock waves caused by the breakaway of the "Gang of Four" from the Labour Party continue to reverberate. It was a seismic event in modern political history. At its heart was David Owen, one of the party's very brightest stars who, aged just 38, had already been foreign secretary.

The breakaway by four former Cabinet ministers - and subsequent formation of the Social Democratic Party, or SDP - was said at the time to have "broken the mould" of British politics. In the eyes of those who stayed behind in a deeply divided, hugely unpopular party, the Gang of Four were traitors who helped to condemn Labour to 16 more years in the wilderness. For these reasons, Gordon Brown's private chat with Lord Owen is perhaps even more surprising than that with Lady Thatcher, who was invited for tea at Number 10 in the Prime Minister's much-publicised coup of last week. To this day, many Labour MPs and activists narrow their eyes whenever Lord Owen's name is mentioned. For he and Mr Brown to hold talks that could lead to his re-embracing of Labour is little short of extraordinary. In 1981, two years after Margaret Thatcher had been elected prime minister, the Labour Party under Michael Foot made a series of lurches to the Left, including a pledge to withdraw Britain from the European Union (then the European Economic Community), yield more power to the trade unions and lend more backing to unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Early in the year Dr Owen, as he was then, and three other big-hitting Labour "moderates", Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers, announced their breakaway move. Related Articles David Owen in talks with Gordon Brown 16 Sep 2007 The Gang of Four was joined by 28 other Labour MPs - a sizeable chunk of the parliamentary party - and one Conservative MP. In 1981 the new party entered into an electoral pact with the Liberal Party, scoring notable by--election victories and winning 25 per cent of the vote in the 1983 general election, splitting the anti-Tory vote and ensuring Mrs Thatcher's landslide victory. In 1987 the Alliance, as it was then known, won 23 per cent of the vote. Bitter splits followed, however, on plans for a full merger with the Liberals. While Lord Jenkins, Lady Williams and Lord Rodgers went on to join what was to become the Liberal Democrats, Lord Owen, by now satirised as "Dr Death" and portrayed as Dracula in Spitting Image on television, remained leader of a "rump" SDP with only three MPs.

It was wound up in 1990. In the next seven years, Lord Owen stoked Labour's ire by continuing on his rightward political journey, even flirting with joining the Conservative Cabinet. In June 1990 Mrs Thatcher said the Tory party was Lord Owen's "natural home". In 1992 John Major appointed him to a key European Union position on former Yugoslavia. In the general election that year, Lord Owen advised voters to back the Lib Dems where they had a chance of winning and elsewhere to vote Conservative to stop Neil Kinnock from becoming prime minister. After Labour's landslide win, Tony Blair made efforts to mend the rift with the Gang of Four - most notably with Lord Jenkins. Mr Brown continued that process by offering Lady Williams an advisory role. However, both Lord Jenkins, until his death in 2003, and Lady Williams remained members of the Liberal Democrats, as does Lord Rodgers. Lord Owen sits as a crossbencher - without party affiliation - in the House of Lords. He became one of Mr Blair's fiercest critics over the Iraq war, led a campaign against membership of the euro monetary zone and even accused Mr Blair of covering up the full extent of his heart condition.

This weekend, however, after tea and sympathy at Number 10, there are the first signs that Lord Owen's great political journey will see him coming home to Labour. "I'm still a social democrat," he told The Sunday Telegraph. Asked if he would support Labour under Mr Brown at the general election, he conspicuously refused to rule it out, claiming: "If an election comes I will have to decide. I'm not going to be drawn now." Lord Owen could become the most striking recruit yet for Mr Brown - a walking symbol of the bitterness that sparked civil war in his party and kept it out of power for a generation. If the Prime Minister succeeds, and if his party lets him, it will represent a breathtaking political coup. BBC NEWS | UK | Politics | Obituary: Roy Jenkins Sunday, 5 January, 2003, 13:45 GMT Obituary: Roy Jenkins Roy Jenkins was a civilised, liberal, decent politician, for those who liked him. For harsher critics he was a snob who had betrayed his party and his working-class roots. He had set out to be prime minister but his focus was never on politics alone.

He was a rare creature among modern politicians: a man whose other interests, as a prolific and noted author and journalist, more than made up for any disappointments. Lord Jenkins was in fact a product of the mining valleys of south-east Wales, his father a miners' agent who became a Labour MP. The young Roy Jenkins He was immersed in Labour politics from an early age. From the local grammar school, he went on to take a First at Balliol College, Oxford before entering Parliament just after the Second World War. His wartime experience as a captain in the Royal Artillery and as a codebreaker, helping to crack the secrets of the Enigma machine at Bletchley Park, moulded him into one of the first true believers in a united Europe. Although he initially flirted with the left-wing of the Labour Party, Lord Jenkins became a committed supporter of the party's charismatic, right-wing leader, Hugh Gaitskell, though he was dismayed by Gaitskell's abandonment of the European ideal. When Gaitskell's arch-rival, Harold Wilson, took office in 1964, Lord Jenkins was rapidly promoted.

From being in charge of aviation, a potential political hot potato, he made a name for himself as a radical home secretary. Abortion and homosexuality were legalised, divorce was made easier, and theatre censorship was abolished. He saw himself as a libertarian, a defender of individual rights against the state but, for decades to come, he would be blamed by right-wingers for society's many problems. He was an austere Chancellor He became Chancellor of the Exchequer following the devaluation of sterling and James Callaghan's resignation in 1967. He was an austere, some would say over-prudent, Chancellor who tried to turn around Britain's sickly economy and refused to make big tax cuts. The left accused Jenkins of losing the 1970 general election by introducing a dull, low-key budget. He countered this criticism by reaffirming his belief that "the public are highly sceptical of give-away budgets immediately before a general election". In opposition, Jenkins waited for the big moment, the chance to replace Wilson. But his high hopes were wrecked by the great debate of the day, whether Britain should join the European Community. Labour was bitterly divided and Jenkins resigned as Deputy Leader when the party eventually turned against Europe.

In 1975, he led the successful referendum campaign to keep Britain in Europe. Roy Jenkins was a natural choice to be the first British President of the European Commission, where his term was primarily remembered for reviving the idea of European monetary union. Gang of Four: Rodgers, Williams, Jenkins and Owen But his sights were still on domestic politics and, while Labour took big strides to the left, Jenkins and a few friends, including former Cabinet ministers David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams saw the chance to step into the centre ground. It was the start of a big adventure, during which the Social Democratic Party and the Gang of Four would climb to over 50 percent in the polls and Jenkins would win a by-election in Glasgow. But Jenkins and David Owen soon fell out over the party's partnership with the Liberals and the SDP folded within a decade. In later years, Lord Jenkins would have been very much at home in New Labour. His books, mainly political biographies, were popular and critical successes and his biography of Gladstone brought him a coveted Whitbread Prize, beating Salman Rushdie in the process.

Lord Jenkins enjoyed the high life: a devotee of fine wines and food, Harold Wilson once described him as "more of a socialite than a socialist." He kept a good table, where politicians, academics and other members of the glitterati were constantly entertained by discussion and anecdote. Bon viveur: Roy Jenkins enjoyed good food and fine claret The liberality of Lord Jenkins' politics was mirrored in his private life. Numerous love affairs, most notably with Jackie Kennedy's sister Lee Radziwill, were conducted discreetly and failed to damage a long and loving marriage to his wife, Jennifer. He was particularly proud of his election as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, where he beat his old Balliol colleague Sir Edward Heath, and modest about his distinguished output as a political biographer. Roy Jenkins was a private man, his manner, which his friends said was a product of his overwhelming shyness, was frequently off-putting. But he changed the shape of British society, and changed the shape of British politics, too.

Key stories “Unelectable Corbyn”: Spot on comment from Calvin Tucker | 21centurymanifesto “Unelectable Corbyn”: Spot on comment from Calvin Tucker Home “Keep Corbyn and it will all end like it did with the unelectable Michael Foot!” is the media mantra. But what really happened to the Labour Party between 1981 and 1983? Here’s my take. 35 years ago, the so-called Gang of Four – Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams – gathered at David Owen’s house in East London to issue the Limehouse Declaration and to announce their split from Labour, and the setting up of what was to become the Social Democratic Party, or SDP for short. Some of us are old enough to remember the tumultuous events which followed: the SDP’s media-fuelled rise in the polls and Labour’s subsequent defeat in the 1983 election. Others will have read about this period, but almost certainly from sources which frame the division as being ‘unelectable left wing extremists versus electable moderates’. What is less well known is that at the time of the split, the Labour Party under the leadership of Michael Foot enjoyed a huge lead in the polls.

The eleven national opinion polls conducted between 10 November 1980 when Foot won the leadership and the Limehouse Declaration on 25 January 1981, show Labour’s percentage of the vote as: 43, 50, 46.5, 47, 47, 48, 47.5, 56, 51, 47, 45. Labour’s lead over the Tories fluctuated between 7 and 24 percent, and on the day before the Limehouse Declaration, Foot’s Labour enjoyed a straight-up 10 point lead over Thatcher’s Tories (Mori, 24 Jan 1981). Whatever the SDP split was about, what it was not about was the supposed ‘unelectability’ of Michael Foot. That’s an example of history being rewritten to scare off Labour members from ever again electing a left-winger as Party leader. And to scare off the voters, if perchance the members ignored the supposed lessons of history. If anything, the reverse is true.

The split was in part prompted by the well-founded fear that Foot might in fact win an election on a program that the right in the party vehemently opposed and would not serve in government. It was only when the SDP began to take votes from Labour, that the ‘unelectability’ of Michael Foot became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Unelectability didn’t precipitate the split. The split precipitated the unelectability. But there’s no need to take it from me. This is from the opening statement of the 1983 SDP manifesto: “By 1987, if we continue as we are, unemployment will be at least as bad as in 1983. As a reaction, if the old two-party system is allowed to continue, we shall then lurch into the most extreme left-wing Government we have ever known.” Here’s Tony Blair on Corbyn, from July 2015: “Let me be absolutely clear: I wouldn’t want to win on an old-fashioned leftist platform. Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it.” Both the SDP splitters and Blair oppose the left on principle, and they are refreshingly open about it.

It wasn’t then, and isn’t now, about “electability”. The 1982 Falklands War and the accompanying orgy of flag-waving chauvinism (which Foot was powerless to prevent) led to a spike in the Tory vote to 45%+ in the polls; a high watermark which the Labour Party, now fighting on two flanks, could not hope to reach. What became of the SDP and its pretensions to govern Britain? Well, having delivered the coup de gras to Michael Foot in the ’83 election as one half of the SDP – Liberal Alliance, they formally merged with the Liberals, their strategic usefulness to the right wing establishment exhausted. David Owen led a rump of anti-merger SDPists from unelectability to extinction. The fitting epitaph being the the night-of-the-living-dead in the 1990 Bootle by-election, when the zombie SDP was beaten into seventh place by the candidate from the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Not being a loony himself, Owen sensibly wound up the SDP shortly afterwards and re-entered parliament, this time as a job-for-life unelected member of the House of Lords, where he sits as an ‘independent social democrat’, whatever that means. He was the future once. Shirley Williams’ political journey ended with her joining the Conservative coalition, and in the House of Lords voting to push through the Health and Social Care Bill which opened up Labour’s 1945 crowning glory, the NHS, to privatisation. Roy Jenkins died in 2003, and Bill Rodgers wrote a book. Does any of this matter except to historians and political nerds? I would argue that it does. Arguments about the past matter because they are really debates about the present and the future.

Calvin Tucker works at the Morning Star Like this: 35 years since the Limehouse Declaration | Kmflett's Blog 35 years since the Limehouse Declaration In Uncategorized on January 25, 2016 by kmflett 35 Years since the Limehouse Declaration It is 35 years (Monday 26th January 1981) since the ‘gang of four’ Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams made the Limehouse Declaration and formed the Council for Social Democracy. Ultimately they split from Labour to form the SDP which in due course became what is today the Liberal Democrats. The Financial Times has a useful article looking at the SDP in terms of today’s politics by George Parker and Jim Pickard but interestingly the Guardian, which had more SDP supporters than other papers, has nothing. It is probably a little too soon to understand what the SDP means and meant historically (& likewise the countervailing trend that stayed in Labour- New Labour) and the FT piece is more politics than history.

It will nevertheless be interesting to see if there are people around this week who are prepared to not only write in defence of the SDP split but justify it in terms of a positive impact. Self evidently I was never a fan and the SDP had elements in it that were Cold War, anti-Communist, Atlanticists who was I particularly un-fond of. It also had however numbers who might arguably be characterised as Fabians, who believed in equality, and progress and were very keen to see these things actually happen in British society. Tony Benn noted of the supporters of the Council for Social Democracy ‘it was the middle class coming out in support of a break from the Labour Party’.(7th February 1981). He also noted that the ‘BBC is now the voice of Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins’ underlining that the left’s focus on the media has a long history. There was without doubt sympathy for the SDP in the BBC (some might reflect it was better than its historic tendency to accommodate Toy views) but it was also of course rather newsworthy as the first split in Labour since 1931.

Veteran New Labourite John McTernan argues in the FT piece that in the longer run Labour and the Liberals should merge and that was certainly part of the Blair project. It might broadly be desirable to have a broad progressive force in UK politics, although the realignment would also mean the significant section of the LibDems who either prefer or at least can live with the Tories doing something else. The issue would be, as it was for the SDP, whether this re-configuration would actually succeed in tempering the kind of naked market capitalism that Osborne rather likes. Frankly I would doubt it. Again as above it would be interesting to see arguments suggesting that this would work Like this: AHC/WI: Left-wing Gang of Four (UK) | Alternate History Discussion Alternate History Discussion City of Edinburgh The 'Gang of Four' in British politics refers to Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers, and Shirley Williams who left the Labour party in 1981 following long-standing tensions between the left and right-wings of the Labour Party and the subsequent election of Michael Foot as the new party leader.

The splintering of the party, soon joined by other Labour MPs would go on to create the Social Democratic Party that would form an electoral alliance with the Liberals eventually culminating with the two parties uniting as the Liberal Democrats. My question and challenge is how could a left-wing version of the 'Gang of Four' come to pass, who would it most likely be comprised of, and what would the repercussions on British politics be in this situation? V-J We Will Snuggle, I Promise Joined: Norþanhymbra Honestly? You need a POD decades before the actual OTL emergence of the Gang of Four. The left were in a growing ascendency within Labour from at least as far back as the early 1970s and they consequently had no reason to jump ship from then onwards. City of Edinburgh V-J said: ↑ Honestly? You need a POD decades before the actual OTL emergence of the Gang of Four. The left were in a growing ascendency within Labour from at least as far back as the early 1970s and they consequently had no reason to jump ship from then onwards. Click to expand...

Oh, I wasn't suggesting that it would come about as a strict alternative to the likes of Denis Healey being elected leader instead of Foot in 1980. I know that the left were in one of the key positions for some time within the party, as you can see during the Wilson years. I was just curious to see how such a situation would be created and what the necessary conditions would be for it. I would assume that you would need to either have the left of the party sidelined from influence for some time, presumably due to perceived failings or simply being beaten to the post by the right which would have some success? Mile End, London Have George Brown win the leadership in 1963 and then have Labour win a convincing victory against Douglas-Home (or some other candidate who could potentially be worse - Quintin Hogg, perhaps?) in '64. If Brown can keep himself together until '68/'69, then Labour is most likely on track for another victory. Brown would probably deem it necessary to reach across to the left and put them in his Cabinet after giving them a good fight in the '63 leadership election.

Other than keeping them inside the tent, he wouldn't do much to improve their standing or reach out to their activists. Keep him in until a right-wing successor comes along who can help to force out the student left that would arise around the issues of Vietnam and the CND, and you're on track for marginalising the Labour left so much (a stridently pro-Europe right-winger in the leadership would also help this internal mess get worse) that it decides "enough is enough" and walks out with some members of Brown's Cabinet and his successor's Cabinet. Effectively, a "Socialist Labour Party" could only act as a pressure group with Parliamentary representation. It'd be as relevant as the SDP, though it wouldn't make an alliance with the Liberals. I can see it taking a handful of seats from Labour and keeping them for a decade or so, but long-term prospects are bleak. There is another scenario, however, that I'll elaborate on more later. Tamaki Makaurau Very broadly, this happened IOTL with Militant's Open Turn in the early 1990s - a leftist splinter from Labour over issues of ideology (becoming the Socialist Party of England and Wales).

The difference was that there were only two Militant-backed MPs at this point (Pat Glass and Dave Nellist) and Militant had lost any credibility they once had due to the Liverpool debacle and Kinnock's witch-hunt. But if Militant had abandoned entryism as a bad job in the 1980s, they'd have had Eric Heffer in the tank as well, and if this was before the whole Liverpool thing, maybe quite a few more left-wing Labour MPs would have joined, and they'd have got some actual traction. That said, a lot of the left of Labour were very sentimental about being in the Labour Party, so obvious lefties like Tony Benn would never, ever have left the Party to set up a new splinter. How could this happen? Well, as you say, a Healey victory could lead to an earlier clampdown on Militant, forcing them out into the open. Alternatively, if you have Peter Taaffe and his followers (especially in the Scottish branch) become more influential within Militant earlier - maybe by having Ted Grant die - then they could lead the movement to start opposing Labour in the early-mid '80s.

I would say that at this point their position on certain local authorities was a lot weaker, so you would see a lot of fire and brimstone, but the Militant Party probably wouldn't have any power to back it up anywhere, except maybe in Liverpool, provided the coalition numbers stacked up with the Liberals. Also, I don't know how many members Militant had at this point, but it may well have been fewer than they had in c.1987. Although the split would have attracted more of the non-Militant Left the earlier it took place after 1980. Reydan said: ↑ I like both of the ideas above. I've one more to add: POD being Barbara Castle managing to convince the TUC leadership of the sense of her "In Place of Strife" Whitepaper, leading to a reconciliation between her and the TUC in time. Castle's popularity would have been a thorn in the side of Callaghan (they hated each other) and might have seen her challenge him for leadership. Click to expand...

Well, she couldn't challenge him for the leadership in '69 (as Wilson was still leader), but she might have an early chance if Labour scrapes through in '70 (which is fairly likely if In Place of Strife is given TUC assent). Wilson would most likely resign in '71 or '72, which would be prime leadership campaign time for both Callaghan and Castle. If she wins, Callaghan might be likely, in a fit of pique, to splinter the party and move to her left. Most likely left-wingers to go with him to form a Gang of Four would be Tony Benn, Michael Foot and, possibly, a young John Smith. Click to expand... Callaghan would not turn left and men like Benn and Foot would be very unlikely to believe his Damascene conversion. He certainly wouldn't splinter the party - what is a trade unionist without a trade union movement? He'd sooner challenge Castle again once Labour is out of office than split Labour. Even that, I think is unlikely. Callaghan was from the Old Right, much like John Smith, and wouldn't have gone so far as to abandon Labour because of In Place of Strife.

If the unions agree to it, then surely Callaghan has no argument - you see? Tamaki Makaurau Comisario said: ↑ Well, she couldn't challenge him for the leadership in '69 (as Wilson was still leader), but she might have an early chance if Labour scrapes through in '70 (which is fairly likely if In Place of Strife is given TUC assent). Wilson would most likely resign in '71 or '72, which would be prime leadership campaign time for both Callaghan and Castle. Callaghan would not turn left and men like Benn and Foot would be very unlikely to believe his Damascene conversion. He certainly wouldn't splinter the party - what is a trade unionist without a trade union movement? He'd sooner challenge Castle again once Labour is out of office than split Labour. Even that, I think is unlikely. Callaghan was from the Old Right, much like John Smith, and wouldn't have gone so far as to abandon Labour because of In Place of Strife. If the unions agree to it, then surely Callaghan has no argument - you see? Click to expand... Seconded on this. Callaghan and Smith are...

odd choices for a Left-wing Gang, to say the least, and Benn and Foot were far too sentimentally attached to Labour to consider a split. Joined: Jan 16, 2016 Does it necessarily have to be around the same time as the OTL Gang of Four? Because I'd think that a left wing defection from Labour would have been likely in the Blair years especially if there had been much of a chance of electoral success. If some form of PR had been implemented for whatever reason during that time, that opportunity would have opened up for a left of Labour party to gain a fair amount of representation in the Commons. Perhaps the Iraq war leads to more left wing MPs leaving in addition to Galloway? Or the Lib Dems somehow succeed in implementing STV, David Miliband is elected Labour leader, and some figures on the left of the party jump ship to form a new party in alliance with other left wing parties like the Greens, Respect, or TUSC, creating a coalition similar to Syriza or Podemos? City of Edinburgh The George Brown winning '63 idea sounds like the better suggestion for creating a more long-term Socialist Labour Party, or Democratic Socialist Party if we wanted to go analogue to the SDP.

I agree there would be no chance of that group going on to the form any kind of electoral pact with the Liberals, given the vast ideological gulf that would exist between them compared with the Liberals and the SDP. Could this potential lead to an impact on the left-wing vote though, at least initially as it did to Labour with the SDP split? The Militant Open idea seems like a fairly credible one too, though I doubt it could have the same potential impact by comparison - I know that Militant had some clout within the party during the '80s but it was on a localised level and I would have thought it would remain on the scale even with a schism in the party. Heffer, Skinner, Maynard, and Booth seem like good standard bearers for the left. Do you think Heffer would have enough clout compared with Jenkins though to be able to orchestrate such a split? I know that most of the big beasts on the left would have been unlikely to leave Labour, as we've already stated for Foot and Benn, but I don't know whether Heffer could have the same impact and leadership that Jenkins was able to provide for the SDP?

Dennis Skinner (Continuity Socialist Labour) Joan Maynard (Lady In Red) Albert Booth (Who?) Click to expand... Skinner's probably too much of a rowdy loyalist, tbh. He enjoys standing in the tent pissing... well, all over the place. I only know of Booth thanks to the Shapiroverse, so he's perfect. Was he that far left, though? Techdread said: ↑ The Militant Open idea seems like a fairly credible one too, though I doubt it could have the same potential impact by comparison - I know that Militant had some clout within the party during the '80s but it was on a localised level and I would have thought it would remain on the scale even with a schism in the party. Click to expand... Remember both me and Comisario are talking about the same (or similar) types of people but in different circumstances, so his SLP will have strong areas and weak areas just as much as the Militant Party would. And with FPTP, that's obviously a strength, not a weakness.

However, I will say that the Militant Party would probably be more likely do disappear up its own arse due to ideological wankery, and therefore fritter away cred and seats, but maybe not by much. For a Militant-led Gang of Four, here's my lot: Peter Taaffe - the extra-parliamentary brains behind the movement Joan Maynard - same as Comisario Ken Livingstone/Dave Nellist/Terry Fields - the young hope Eric Heffer/Pat Wall - the other one, who gives a bit of gravitas to the keen young one. Mile End, London Uhura's Mazda said: ↑ Skinner's probably too much of a rowdy loyalist, tbh. He enjoys standing in the tent pissing... well, all over the place. Click to expand... True, but finding a younger fella to take up the David Owen role who could fit well into a left-wing splinter is a fairly difficult task. I still wanted someone who could have plausibly served in a '70s Cabinet before splitting. I only know of Booth thanks to the Shapiroverse, so he's perfect. Was he that far left, though? Click to expand...

I should say so - he's an anti-apartheid, "workers' control of the means of production", rabidly socially liberal unilateralist who was well-liked in the AWL (and still to this day). He fits the bill pretty damn well. Dennis Skinner (Continuity Socialist Labour) Joan Maynard (Lady In Red) Albert Booth (Who?) Click to expand... This is the main problem with a left wing break away from Labour. The SDP had four cabinet ministers with them, three of whom were pretty senior (especially Jenkins). They were backed up by 20-30 other MPs, mostly from the Labour right. But for the left, if as many predict, their main leaders, Benn and Foot, remain in, any breakaway would have very little profile, seeing as of those four, the only one who served in a cabinet capacity was Booth. I very much doubt any of them were really household names either. So they would probably think twice before breaking off, given that, under FPTP, their electoral chances would be bleak anyway. Mile End, London JDrakeify said: ↑ This is the main problem with a left wing break away from Labour.

The SDP had four cabinet ministers with them, three of whom were pretty senior (especially Jenkins). They were backed up by 20-30 other MPs, mostly from the Labour right. But for the left, if as many predict, their main leaders, Benn and Foot, remain in, any breakaway would have very little profile, seeing as of those four, the only one who served in a cabinet capacity was Booth. I very much doubt any of them were really household names either. So they would probably think twice before breaking off, given that, under FPTP, their electoral chances would be bleak anyway. Click to expand... Indeed, but the scenario was elaborating upon was one of George Brown replacing Wilson and switching the positions of the left with the right in order to create a plausinle analogous situation. Heffer could be in the Cabinet by '68 or '69, meaning he could become the most senior splitter if rises in the 1970s. Maynard has less of a chance of rising, of course (and Skinner is too young to really get far before the middle years of the '70s). So, Booth and Heffer would be your real "big beasts" in this ATL.

Tamaki Makaurau I think a general issue that's come up here is how much is needed to make the Left pull an SDP. Not only are the big beasts attached to the idea of being in the Labour Party, we also need to deal with the fact that the membership very rarely follows those who do split - let alone the voters. For instance, after Heffer's death, the Right of the Party selected Peter Kilfoyle to stand in the by-election and Militant tried out their first straight fight against Labour, standing a popular local Cllr, Lesley Mahmood (who is a major character in my recently Turtledove-nominated TLIAW which features a separate Militant Party [/PLUG]) and she only got about 5% of the vote. The problem is that Denis Healey was almost right in saying that there was "nowhere else to go", but he was directing it against the wrong people - right instead of left. Jan 16, 2016 Uhura's Mazda said: ↑ I think a general issue that's come up here is how much is needed to make the Left pull an SDP.

Not only are the big beasts attached to the idea of being in the Labour Party, we also need to deal with the fact that the membership very rarely follows those who do split - let alone the voters. For instance, after Heffer's death, the Right of the Party selected Peter Kilfoyle to stand in the by-election and Militant tried out their first straight fight against Labour, standing a popular local Cllr, Lesley Mahmood (who is a major character in my recently Turtledove-nominated TLIAW which features a separate Militant Party [/PLUG]) and she only got about 5% of the vote. The problem is that Denis Healey was almost right in saying that there was "nowhere else to go", but he was directing it against the wrong people - right instead of left. Click to expand... To be honest I think he would be right in both cases. The SDP had a good start but ultimately only won 6 seats in 1983,23 as Alliance, whilst splitting the left wing vote at the same time. I think there would be a lower number of people at that time willing to vote for a party to the left of Labour than a centrist one.

Possibly around 15% max. That number would go even further down if Benn remained the main figure of the left in this TL, and did not join. A lot of his followers would stay supporting Labour and look upon the new party as traitors. However, if you can somehow solve the Benn problem to get them up to around 10% of the vote, I would suggest that, in spite of there lower share of the vote, they could actually do a bit better than the SDP did, because generally in UK political history far left parties have tended to been able to concentrate their vote a bit better than far right or centrist parties. The Communists, ILP, Respect, and the Greens all have gained seats at elections where they have had less than 1% of the vote. Meanwhile the likes of UKIP had 12.5% at the last election and ended up down from two seats to one. So I think they could probably gain around a dozen seats, mainly in the most left wing cities like Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, and Inner London. Far from a great showing, but better than the SDP.

Question: Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and who else made up the Gang of Four?
Answer: BILL RODGERS